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Monday, 31 December 2012

2012: POLISH, a year in review

We saw so many trends emerge: glitter bombs, matte glitter, magnetic nail polish, too many crackle/shatters, gold leaf top coats, and tons of holos, multichromes/duochromes and gorgeous colour shifting shimmers!
There was an explosion of handmade or indie and boutique brand lacquers and mainstream manufacturers crossed over in to the world of nail art and chunky glitters in an attempt to keep up!

I think one of the biggest shifts in 2012 was towards popularising or 'main-streaming' nail art. We have the Ciate Caviar Manicure debacle and their Velvet Manicure (which was pretty drama free), Orly Flash Glam FX, China Glaze's Cirque du Soleil glitters, Sation's I Love Miss-Self glitters, the Nails Inc Sprinkles range and Model's Own Mirrorball glitters. Basically every big company has been trying to 'keep up with the Jonses' of the indie world!
And of course every company and their dog now offer nail wraps and gel manicure lines!

In the year ahead we have 'Liquid Sand' or matte glitters to look forward to, or maybe for some to dread? There will also be many more holos coming out. I for one am really looking forward to China Glaze's Hologram range. The promo shots show less generic shades and they have some spacey names!!!

Was the past year also full of drama or what?!

I have to give the crown to Lynnderella's fairly public assassination of her brand and character which resulted in a split from her distributor Llarowe and an Ebay enterprise that smells a bit fishy. Oy vey!
I don't think I weighed in on the subject at all, publicly. Everyone else was so opinionated in the matter that I figured it was done to death!!! I did love how almost immediately Lynn's were purged through blog sales!!!

The Ciate Caviar Manicure 'cease and desist' thing was also detrimental to the brand's standing in the nail blogger community. And the 'Fish Egg' manis persisted for quite some time, so I'm sure there are some bloggers that will not promote their products in the future...

Sinful Colors (or was it Walgreen's?) also got bombed for the improper usage of blogger's nail art images. It was pretty blatant stealing and misrepresentation (ie. LYING) about how to achieve certain nail art looks with their polishes that saw masses of Sinful polishes listed in blog sales later in the year. Some very shady behaviour from a company/professionals who knew better. Maybe they discounted the bloggers concerned as not being savvy enough to know their legal rights surrounding the use of their images; or perhaps they just didn't give a shit because they knew the victims wouldn't be able to do much about it. Either way it probably outraged me the most this year. I find shady business ethics/practices to be somewhat repugnant. Especially when it comes to sizeable corporations.

And the most prevalent drama of 2012? Has to be curling or 'taco' glitters in indie polish! It's been a recurring theme all year and I'm frankly sick of it!
If you buy a glitter polish, do your research and be prepared for the possibility. Big brands have curling glitters so is it any surprise that handmade polishes have the same issue? Yeah it can be a PITA and I don't like it, but I won't be throwing a tantrum about it. Perhaps that's just the kiwi way or how I was raised... I certainly noticed that many, many woman (whom I can only assume are mainly American, based on the availability of the polish to the rest of the world - and I'm very sorry if this is an incorrect generalisation) vehemently believe they are entitled to the world when it comes to the quality of the polish they purchase, or the customer service they receive. There was an unbelievable amount of nasty facebook and blog comments about curling glitters and the restricted availability of indie polishes which I just could not fathom!!!!!!

I think most of these dramas have petered out now, so for 2013 I'm hoping for a more harmonious polish community! Kindness breeds kindness I hear, so lets all be kind and put some positivity back into the atmosphere :)

Looking Ahead

I plan for 2013 to be a year full of positive change for me.
In March I begin a year long course training to become a qualified vet nurse. After years of struggling to see a future for myself, I'm so thrilled to be working towards a career caring for animals.
I want to exercise, eat right and lose a LOT of weight so that I am happy and healthy in myself.
And I will be setting some blog related goals too!

I want to hit the 1000 follower mark.

I want to interact more with all of you, using social media

I want to use all my Untrieds and thin out my out of control polish collection!

I also want to reign in my polish spending!!!!!

And I want to feature nail art on a regular basis and really improve my skills

So there's some resolutions for you! Lets see how long they last, fingers crossed.

You can also expect a post or two on my favourite polishes released in 2012. It'll have to be a January thing because I'm not as organised as all the other bloggers that have been posting their favs all week. God I love looking at them!!! Now I have to trawl through my stash to pick out the ones have loved the most!

Love the post, Michaela, and cheering you on the whole way! Oooh exciting about the vet nursing, too. My resolutions are a) to gain new skills (art course, belly dancing, carpentry and also volunteering with bird rescue), and to become morbidly obese and happy. (thats from an article in a magazine - the author had a friend who repeatedly 'failed' her NY resolution to lose weight, so made a new one to become morbidly obese, and lost 25kg without really trying. Could work, you know, so far its the funniest diet I've been on and I AM losing weight ... :D Happy New Year!

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